A tribute to the dash in the poetry of Emily Dickinson — plus, yes — a reminder — it’s not too late to bake your cake for National Punctuation Day!

I’m a day late on this one, as usual. And — oh, rats! — just as I feared — a dollar short. Yesterday was National Punctuation Day. Sorry if you missed it. As an author, I tend to think of every blessed day as punctuation day. But when pressed, I will confess to a favorite — the dash. Not to be confused with the hyphen, heaven forfend. But before I go there, to celebrate the dash in fine fashion, let’s get to the good news:

It is NOT TOO LATE to enter the National Punctuation Day Baking Contest!

This is serious business and yes, there are rules:

RULES FOR THE NATIONAL PUNCTUATION DAY BAKING CONTEST

1. Entrants must send a recipe and a sample of their cookie, cake, pastry, doughnut, or bread baked in the shape of a punctuation mark to National Punctuation Day, 1517 Buckeye Court, Pinole, CA 94564.

2. Entrants must send two print photos—one putting the item in an oven before baking and the other taking it out when it’s done. Make sure we can see the baked goods clearly.

3. First-, second-, and third-place winners will receive a box of non-edible NPD goodies, and all entrants’ photos and recipes will be published on the National Punctuation Day website.

4. All entries must be received by September 30, 2009!

So get cooking, people! The website, founded by Jeff Rubin, is pretty terrific — and there’s even a free newsletter, The Exclamation Point! (How did you like that dash, folks? It worked, right? Less formal than the aristocratic colon, the dash often serves much of the same function, the speaker gets that extra beat, the next thing is set off with time and space, yet it all feels natural and common, the way real folk sound and think — I think. The punctuation mark of true cognition.)

Of course, no one has done more for the dash than this woman:

Emily Dickinson, American Poet.

For more on Emily Dickinson’s radical use of the dash, click here — you won’t be sorry you did.

Here’s an example:

I cannot live with You —
It would be Life —
And Life is over there —
Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to —
Putting up
Our Life — His Porcelain —
Like a Cup —

Thank you, Kristine, I really appreciate your interest — I hope the book lives up to the relentless hype machine that is jamespreller.com.

BTW, the Shannon above is a first-time comment from a long-time lurker, and friend, the newly wed Shannon Penney (daggers to the hearts of men everywhere!), my editor at Scholastic.

Some day we’ll have to talk about the much-maligned exclamation point. It’s become de rigueur to dismiss them out of hand — with no place in polished prose — so of course that activates the childishly oppositional aspect of my nature. Surely some people must THINK in exclamation points (others in ellipsis, etc.).

I remember reading a great profile on Ted Williams — who was hard of hearing, emphatic by nature, and tended to shout — where the writer put EVERYTHING that Williams said in CAPS. Every word. You’d think that over 15 pages it would grate on the nerves, but it totally worked.